Covid-19: Chile should start producing Sinovac vaccines next year
Sinovac will invest nearly $ 60 million to build a factory to manufacture vaccines to supply them to all of South America.
AFP - LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The Chinese pharmaceutical company and the Chilean authorities confirmed, Wednesday, August 4, 2021, the construction of a factory and a scientific research center in the country.
Nearly 60 million doses of Sinovac vaccines could thus be produced in Chile each year.
The plant is expected to start operating in March or April 2022.
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With our correspondent in Santiago de Chile,
Justine Fontaine
The Chinese pharmaceutical company will invest nearly $ 60 million to build this factory, which will manufacture
vaccines against Covid-19
, against influenza and against hepatitis.
Objective: to supply the entire South American continent.
Sinovac vice-president Weining Meng explained this during a visit to Santiago on Wednesday: “
We have decided to set up a filling and packaging plant in the capital region. And on the other hand, we also want to set up a long-term collaboration, by working on research and development of vaccines.
"
A research center will indeed be installed in the north of the country, in partnership with several Chilean universities.
Announcements welcomed by the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris: “
It is a very happy day for us, because Chile announces the return of vaccine production on its soil.
Chile started producing vaccines in 1867, but hasn't produced vaccines for 18 or 19 years now.
"
The country's relationship with Sinovac is, in any case, not new: the Chinese company has supplied nearly 70% of the vaccines inoculated in Chile against Covid-19 (on the website of the
New England Journal of Medicine
,
consult the study
made public last month on this subject).
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